Let Your Passion Not Fade
Passion is what energizes life. Passion makes the impossible possible. " Without passion life becomes boring. God created us with the emotions to have passion in our life and He wants us to live a passionate life.
Mark 12:28-30 One of the scribes came, asked Jesus “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
Nothing matters more than that. God doesn’t want you to love Him half-heartedly. He wants you to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. Jesus is saying, "If you are going to follow Me, you have to follow Me with passion.”
The Bible tells us that we are to seek God passionately. The Bible says that we are to serve and obey God passionately. We are to trust God passionately. In Colossians 3:23 “And whatever you do, do it with all of your heart, as to the Lord and not to men.” Do everything passionately when it comes to loving God, serving God, and living for God.
However, in our modern era, it has become okay to be passionate about anything except God. I can be passionate about movies. I can be passionate about sports. I can be passionate about fashions and clothes. I can be passionate about restaurants, to go and eat outside. But the people of this generation find it weird to be passionate about God. This has become the modern culture.
Dear brothers & sisters, and youth: Do not fall into the ways of this modern generation. Be passionate in the Lord. Be passionate in His scriptures. The Lord calls us to be passionate while we serve Him and love Him. Let God be your priority and passion in your life at all times.
Today, as we go through God’s word, we are going to look at five passion killers. These five obstacles can keep you from having that constant passion for the Lord. So we are going to look at these five passion killers, and how to not let our heart be swayed by them. For the Lord says, “I want you to love Me with all of your heart.”
1. An unbalanced schedule:
That means either you are overworked, or you are under worked. You are going to lose your passion for life and lose your passion for God. Life is a series of seasons, the Bible says. Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There’s a season for everything.” You need both in your life -- both input and output. You need both rest and work. And too much of either will cause you to lose your passion. Too much work will cause you to lose your passion.
Psalm 127:2 says, "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for God wants His loved ones to get their proper rest." God wants you to get your proper rest.
If you never take time to recharge, and you have an unbalanced ministry work life or career work life, you are going to eventually experience compassion fatigue. What is compassion fatigue? You begin to stop caring. You don’t care about God anymore, you don’t care about other people anymore, and you don’t care about anything anymore. Why? Because you are burnt out from too much work and from too much service.
The Bible says in James 4:17 "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." Do you realize that the more you know about God’s plan for your life, the more responsible you are to God for that knowledge. And if you don’t do anything with the knowledge of God, you are simply increasing your judgment. Because God holds you accountable for what you know. So the Bible says that you need both in your life -- input and output. You need work and you need rest. You need balance in your schedule.
What’s the antidote? 1Timothy 4:7 "Take the time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit." One word. Balance. We all know to be physically fit you have to have a balanced diet. And to be spiritually fit you have to have a balance of God’s five purposes for your life in your life.
a. You need to have time to worship God both in private and public life.
b. You need to have time to fellowship with other believers.
c. You need to have time to read God’s word and grow as a Christian.
d. You need to have time for ministry service.
e. And you need to have time to share your faith with others.
How balanced is your spiritual life? If you do have an unbalanced schedule, you just need to say to God, "God, help me to begin to be more passionate. Help me quit being too busy for You and help me make time to love You."
2. An unconfused sin:
Proverbs 28:13 He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Understand, we don’t walk around thinking, "I have a sin in my life. I am a guilty person." No, we rationalize it consciously. But subconsciously, it guilty us. It will subconsciously pop up into your mind. Maybe right now, as I am talking about it, it begins to pop into your mind.
Here is the truth about us as human beings. We cannot feel enthusiasm and guilt at the same time. You can’t feel guilt and passion at the same time because guilt robs you of passion. Psalm 38:4-6 "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear... I am bowed down, and I am brought low." God sent Jesus to this earth to die on a cross to say, ‘I want to offer you a gift -- the gift of freedom from guilt. That is God’s gift.
Maybe some of you, right now, are in the midst of a personal system crash. The joy in your life has crashed, but you are trying to keep the enthusiasm up. You are trying to keep the passion alive, but the guilt keeps crashing your system.
Fortunately, this is a problem that can be redeemed quickly. Because Jesus has already done all that is needed to be done to deal with our guilt. That’s why He came to this earth.
1 John 1:9 says, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That’s His promise.
Sometimes we carry guilt around for days, weeks, months, or maybe years. But you should not carry guilt around for even an hour. The minute that you realize a sin, do something about it. Do not carry it. So right now, in your mind, in your heart, take it to God and say, "I confess it. God, would You relieve me of this guilt? Thank You for forgiving me. Would You restore my passion? Restore my passion to live for You and love You.”
3. An unsupported lifestyle:
Sometimes you lose passion for God, because you are not spending time around other people who have a passion for God. You’re not spending time around other Christians. You are not getting any fellowship.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up." We need each other. We all fall sometimes. We all stumble at times. So we all need people to help us up in our lives.
There might be times when you start to feel far from God. You start to feel like God is far from you. A strong fellowship of passionate Christians can help to rekindle your passion and love for God in your life. We all need a strong fellowship around other people to have this passion for God. When you have no inspiring contact with other believers, your heart will grow cold.
Hebrews 10:24-25 says "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Your passion for God can fade in your life if there is an unsupported lifestyle. You do not have to live a godly life alone. Pray to the Lord, "God bring some other passionate people into my life. Let my passion for You grow through the people you bring for me."
4. An unclear purpose
When you forget the purpose of your life, it creates a sure way to kill your passion for life and for God. If you don’t know the purpose for life, why struggle in life? Why get up in the morning? Why put forth the effort? Why get out of bed? Life without purpose is activity without direction. It is motion without meaning. Life without purpose is trivial and pointless.
Read with me in Isaiah 49:4 "Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, And my work with my God.’
Passion and purpose go together. When you have a clear purpose, it gives you passion. But understand, it needs to be God’s purpose for your life. If you are only living for yourself, that is a pretty small purpose. That is not going to make you very passionate. You need a cause greater than yourself. That gives life significance and meaning. The more you understand God’s purposes for your life and the more you live out those purposes, the more passionate you are going to be.
Nothing matters more than knowing and living for the purposes that God put you on earth to fulfill. Nothing else can compensate; Not fame, not wealth, not success, not pleasure. Nothing can compensate for life without meaning. So whenever your purpose gets unclear, call upon the Lord and listen to the purposes He has made ready for you, or else you will lose your passion.
An unclear purpose will kill your passion. Have you been living for yourself? Or have you been living for nothing? God wants to remind you today of His purpose for your life. Finally,
5. An undernourished spirit:
Exodus 34:14 "You must worship only the Lord, for He is a God who is passionate about His relationship with you." Did you know that God is passionate about you? The more you understand how God is passionate about you, the more passionate you’re going to get about God. When you forget how much God loves you, you start distancing yourself from Him.
How do we know that God is passionate about us? The proof is the cross. Jesus stretched out His hands and they nailed Him to the cross. God was in essence saying, "I’d rather die than live without you. That’s how passionate I am about My creations. I made you. I love you. And I’d rather die than live without you."
In fact, the suffering of Jesus on the cross is His Passion. Jesus never wanted us to forget what He did for us on the cross. So He gave us the symbol through communion. God is telling us, "When you take communion, I want you to remember My passion. I want you to remember how passionate I am about you."
Acts 1:3, “to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during, forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
A young salesman was disappointed about losing a customer. As he talked with his sales manager, he complained, "I guess it just proves, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." The manager replied, "Your job is not to make them drink. Your job is to make them thirsty."
And this is the same for evangelism. Our lives should be filled with so much passion for Christ that we create a thirst in others for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in Psalm 107:43 "Whoever is wise will remember these things and will think about the deep love of the Lord." 1 John 4:9 says "God showed us how much He loved us by sending His only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love. It’s not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."
A dying passion can also be caused by an undernourished spirit. Focus your heart on the strength that only God can give. Draw up nourishment from Him and rekindle your passion for the Lord.
C. S. Lewis said it like this, "The only thing Christianity cannot be is moderately important." If Jesus is God and He died and He loves you that much, you owe Him the rest of your life, every spare minute of it. The Lord calls you to be passionate in your love and servitude. Be careful of the five passion killers within your life.
But have a balanced schedule in your life. Give time to the Lord to prayer and worship Him in private. Give time to do His servitude and spread the glory of the Lord to others. Do not hold onto your sins or your guilts. Hold them up to the Lord, for He has already paid the price to forgive your sins and wash away your guilts. Surround yourself with a fellowship of passionate believers, so your faith will not grow distance. For when you stumble or grow weak, they will strengthen you in prayer and faith. Remember to live for the purpose of God. For living for God’s purposes will fill you with a passion incomparable to anything earthly. And lastly, nourish your spirit with the word of God. Thirst for the word of God, for He is the living water. Let your passion for the Lord also lead others to thirst for the Lord as well.
In our modern generation, everyone has something that they are passionate about. But dear church, do not let your passions of this world overshadow your passion for the Lord. The Lord is calling you. He is looking at your spirit and soul. Declare to Him that He is your passion, and you are passionate to do His servitude and love Him. Amen.
